"Let him mature the strength of his imagination among the things of this earth," Joseph Conrad

01/30/2007

Nuri Bilge Ceylan

The Turkish film maker Nuri Bilge Ceylan has taken some amazing photographs of Turkey while making his latest film, Climates. I saw some prints of the photos at the National Theatre in London. He has a great website, which has all of the ones from that exhibition ... and is very stylishly done.

An aside: while looking at the photographs it was quiet in the theatre hallways as the shows were ongoing and two of the theatre ushers - a man and a lover - were having a row in a corner. Where they lovers? As we walked around they moved to the other side ... which we then went to as we had not seen those photos and the guy actually complained to her that we were "following" them around! Lucky he was round a corner - I tell you - because I was up for fighting (he looked quite weedy and middle aged, naturally).

The photos made me want to see Ceylan's films; I am trying to get hold of a 2002 one called Uzak (Distant), which was the one he made before Climates. I also really want to visit Istanbul, and hope to do this sometime this year.